Unverified Voracity 8/5

I have an official name for this link/commentary feature: Unverified Voracity. Yes, the snark meter just said "screw you guys, I'm going home."

We're number four! The USA Today Coaches Poll is out.
Teams of note (past 25 I'm just going down the others receiving votes list):

• 4. Michigan
• 9. Ohio State
• 10. Iowa
• 16. Purdue
• 30. Wisconsin(?!?!?)
• 33. Penn State
• 35. Minnesota
• 41. Notre Dame
• 47. Northern Illinois
• 52. Michigan State
  

Texas got two first place votes, outraging Boi From Troy. Duke got a vote from the Spurrinator, which warms the cockles of my heart. I had no idea how much college football missed the Evil Genius until he came back and suddenly everything was much, much better. Can you imagine the look on Phil Fulmer's face if Tennessee is trailing late against the Cocks this year? I'm almost blacking out from the intense pleasure merely envisioning it provides me.

At first blush the list is pretty decent. I think one or two of Minnesota, Michigan State, and Penn State will make a good run this year. There should probably be a fifth Big Ten team in the top 25 (my pick: Minnesota), but they got the order largely right except for Purdue, and not because of their schedule. As you are about to see, I'm sold on Boilermania this year.

Guy Flaming is his real name. (Guy is pronounced all french--like like in Guy Lafleur.) And he's really good at what he does, which is write about Edmonton Oiler hockey for various publications, including Hockey's Future. I'm overjoyed that now he is charged with following the activities of Andrew Cogliano as part of his beat. His Oilers draft review has a couple of complimentary quotes from the Oiler organization about Michigan:

“Something we always look at when we’re drafting kids is what program they are about to go to,” said [Oiler VP of Hockey Operations Kevin] Prendergast. “Red Berenson has had a lot of success there at that school and has developed a lot of great hockey players and Red being a former center too sure won’t hurt this young man.”

Aaand then...

“Well, we’re banking on that [the game opening up] Guy, they say that they’re going to clamp down on the rules, open the game up and create more offense and this kid brings a lot of offense to the table,” confirmed Prendergast. “Although he’s only 5’9.5, he’s not all that smaller than Crosby or Brule. When you’ve got speed and great hands to finish, you can hurt people with it, plus he’s going to a great school in Michigan so he can only get better.”

Cogliano is described by the Oilers organization as "[Todd] Marchant... but with more skill, sense and hands," which causes tingly feelings I'm not sure what to do with.

Wonk: back, at least for one brief post before disappearing back into Internet ether until November. Mostly crunched numbers re: pace in basketball games. It's like the first sweet drop of liquor to the guy on step 11 in AA.

Braylon is all unsigned. Trent Dilfer is like "whatchoo talkin' bout foo'!" 'Cause that's how Trent Dilfer talks. Seriously, watch some NFL Films.

Bloggers manipulate stats just like they do facts. Liars! LIARS!!!! Er. New guy Sea Misting attempts to apply baseball's pythagorean win theorem to college football. (That sentence is probably as close to an IBFC-call as you're ever going to get.) Michigan ends up on the "extremely fortunate" side last year, having exceeded their predicted number of wins by two games. Not surprising given Michigan's narrow escapes against several teams last year and sputtery (though oft explosive) offense. Have You Met Tony? subsidiary Tom, a dastardly Buckeye, compares Ginn and Breaston. I claim NOT ENOUGH DATA SO I MAKE BIG. Ginn's punt return exploits can't be sustainable. If they are, I'll cry. No, I won't tape it.